Urban Design

With the Olympics nicely coinciding with my vacation, I think I’ve watched more coverage of the games than the average human should. Prior to the start of the games, I followed with interest the story of how Beijing was re-fashioning itself to host the games. Much has been written on this subject from the loss of the city’s “hutongs” to the “distorted” messages conveyed by the starchitecture. Some have referred to Beijing as a “Houston on steroids.”

August 20, 2008 - Scott Page

I recently read Oscar Newman’s 1970s book on crime prevention, “Defensible Space.”  In this book, Newman addressed the question of why some public housing projects are insanely dangerous, and others only moderately so.   Although Newman’s analysis is mostly confined to low-income housing, commentators of all stripes have relied on his work:  new urbanist commentator Laurence Aurbach asserts that Newman’s work supports new urbanists’ emphasis on heavily trafficked, walkable streets (1) while Randall O’Toole considers Newman to be a defender of single-use, cul-de-sac sprawl (2).                                                        

August 13, 2008 - Michael Lewyn

Solar sculptures light up at night to take the place of energy-intensive streetlights.

August 10, 2008 - Ecogeek.org

Architect Ken-Ichi Sasaki believes that planners have focused too much on the visual to the detriment of the tactile.

July 28, 2008 - The New York Sun

In early 2008, the Mayors' Institute on City Design received a generous gift from the Edward W. Rose III Family Fund, directed through the National Endowment for the Arts, to support technical assistance teams going into the communities of alumni mayors who have already attended one of our traditional Mayors' Institute sessions. The four cities that we selected for the pilot phase of this work were Santa Rosa, CA, Lincoln, NE, Cincinnati, OH, and Tulsa, OK.

July 18, 2008 - Jess Zimbabwe

As the number of sustainable buildings increase rapidly, ecologically friendly designs are shedding an ugly past for a sleeker and more striking future.

July 14, 2008 - The Christian Science Monitor

Baltimore considers following in the footsteps of Paris, San Francisco and Copenhagen by opening a "design center", a place for people to gather and debate the design of their city.

June 17, 2008 - The Baltimore Sun

Many of famed landscape architect Lawrence Halprin's optimistic 1970s public spaces are being updated and reconsidered. Historic preservationists fight back, but supporters say, "It's a living, breathing space, not a museum."

June 6, 2008 - The Hook (Charlottesville, VA)

My graduate school education left me with a lot of general ideas and a handful of specific ones. One that stuck with me is a concept from landscape architecture: the desire path. Technically, the term means a path where there isn't supposed to be one, a trail of wear and tear that wasn't planned.

June 2, 2008 - Tim Halbur

Waynesville, North Carolina Mayor Gavin Brown is forced to give up on pedestrian-friendly design to save potential jobs from Best Buy.

May 31, 2008 - The Smoky Mountain News

At the World Science Festival in New York, visions of future cities mix the usual Blade Runner-esque architecture with abundant greenery.

May 30, 2008 - Tim Halbur

Columnist E. Thomas McClanahan reviews a new public space in Kansas City, and finds a lot to like in the urban design.

May 28, 2008 - The Kansas City Star

With Cul-de-sac restrictions catching on in the South, one Arkansas town is beginning to make plans to create complete, compact and connected neighborhoods.

May 21, 2008 - Northwest Arkansas Times

New research from the University of Connecticut shows that on-street parking is a key ingredient in a vibrant and pedestrian-friendly downtown.

May 19, 2008 - The Hartford Courant

With climate change on the mind of the world's policy makers, the auto-oriented design of our cities has been singled out as a major culprit -- and understandably so. Cars burn a lot of fossil fuel, so getting people to walk, bike and use public transportation more would help cut down on pollution and green house gases. But how to get people out of their cars? The key, many agree, is to redesign cities. Right now cities are designed for people moving around in their cars, so it's unreasonable to expect people to use any other means of transportation. But give them a city that's planned for walking, biking and public transit -- and it could be a whole new ballgame.

May 7, 2008 - Christian Madera

The City Manager of Portland, Maine terminates 98 positions, including the Urban Designer and Historic Preservation staff, eliminates the Parks Department, and moves the Economic Development department in to the Administrative office.

April 28, 2008 - Portland Press Herald

Tacoma, Washington, could become a walkable city, according to Danish architect Lars Genzoe.

April 24, 2008 - The News Tribune

While The New Urbanism has certainly helped to change the way people think about how communities can be built, it's still seen as a boutique product. More needs to be done if New Urbanist developments are to really compete with mainstream sprawl.

April 21, 2008 - City Journal

A new design competition is hoping to reshape the transit-inaccessible neighborhood of Red Hook into New York City's most bicycle-friendly community.

April 17, 2008 - New York Post

A recent conference hosted by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy focused on how planners around the world are designing urban areas that respond to the impacts of climate change.

April 16, 2008 - MIT Technology Review